


Morning Cuddles

by buckleysdiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Early Mornings, Established Relationship, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckleysdiaz/pseuds/buckleysdiaz
Summary: “Nooo... I want Buck to wake me up!”...“Buck, I can’t get him up today. He wants you.”An early morning at the newly-minted Buckley-Diaz house where Eddie is initially met with some resistance when he goes to wake up his son on one of his rare days off, prompting him to call in his reinforcement.
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 532





	Morning Cuddles

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thanks for clicking on this story. I was scrolling through Tumblr the other day and came across this adorable drawing of the Buckley-Diaz family on a lazy morning where none of them seem to want to get out of bed: https://gray-licious.tumblr.com/post/612888124846161920/family. Since I couldn't seem to get that image out of my head, I decided to write this fic.
> 
> Hope you like it!

“Nooo... I want Buck to wake me up!”

⁂

On any other day, Eddie Diaz would be stronger than this. He knew he would be, he knew he had been. Ever since he had moved to Los Angeles on a whim with his son a few years ago, this had always been Eddie and Christopher’s routine on days when he didn’t have an early shift and was not pulling off a rare all-nighter, even after Buck had introduced him to Carla.

Every morning at a quarter to six, Eddie would be awoken by the shrill and blaring sound of the small digital clock on his night table, which would signal the start of another work day. After serving in the military, the effects of early wake-up calls and a mediocre sleeping schedule were certainly nothing new to Eddie, who was admittedly never a morning person until after he enlisted in the army. However, with the intensive demands of his life as both a firefighter and a single father to a son with special needs, Eddie had found himself dreading the piercing sound of his alarm when he went to sleep every night, leaving him with a subconscious guilt that he could not always reconcile. But in the end, he knew exactly why he had chosen to make this his morning routine every day.

_Christopher._

For much of the last few years, through all the heartbreaking uncertainties that life has thrown his way, there has always been one constant in his life: Christopher. When he decided to pack everything and move across state lines to start a new life away from his slightly overbearing family, he had been thinking of his son. When his world had come crashing down around him with the sudden reappearance and even quicker departure of his late wife, he had his son to hold and hug every day. When he has a particularly bad day at work where he sees a family’s world get turned upside down by an unthinkable tragedy, he unconsciously begins to think of his own son and how much tighter he will hug him before tucking him into bed later that night. Ever since Shannon had left for the first time, Eddie had tried desperately to shelter and protect his son from the unbearably cruel world around them, but he had quickly come to realize that his son wasn’t exactly the one who needed protecting. In more ways than he might be willing to admit, Eddie needs his son more than his son might need him. And in the end, that is exactly why he chooses to wake up at sunrise every morning at the crack of dawn to go through their daily routine.

_An early-morning work-out. A simple breakfast, usually complete with cereal, where Eddie also tries to quickly pack Chris’ blue backpack for school. A quick shower before getting dressed in their respective rooms._

While the pressure of this routine was slightly eased by the introduction of Carla, who was more than happy to make Christopher’s lunches every time she came to watch over the little superman, this had become Eddie and Christopher’s daily schedule. _Their_ routine. _Their_ secret little bonding time as father and son.

But all of this was slowly beginning to change in the best way possible.

In the last few weeks, the Diaz household had begun to welcome a new member, who was certainly never a guest to begin with. _Buck._

After only a few months of officially dating (even if the rest of the 118 was convinced that they had become an item long before the last Christmas party), Eddie knew that Buck’s lease on his modern two-storey apartment was quickly coming to an end and had brought Chris along to give Buck a new key to their house, hoping that Buck would understand the hidden meaning behind the small gesture.

If the look of pure disbelief followed by utter elation on Buck’s face and a repeated scream of “yes” were any indication, Buck had gotten the message loud and clear.

Within a matter of days, Buck had found time in his crazy schedule to pack his apartment up into a dozen cardboard boxes—all marked with the word “FRAGILE” scribbled messily across the top in thick black marker—and slowly moved into the Diaz household as the final day of his lease approached. While everything had suddenly changed between them, it felt like nothing had truly changed at all for the Buckley-Diaz family.

They still had occasional game nights and bedtime story readings. They still went out for pizza and ice cream after Christopher did really well at school. They still had weekly movie nights that almost always culminated in Christopher falling asleep between them and Buck spending the night on the couch, but the differences now seemed very subtle and increasingly domestic.

Buck was now spending his nights sharing a bed with Eddie instead of trying to sprawl out on a mid-century modern three-seater that frankly didn’t do his tall frame any favours. Buck was now dropping off and picking up Christopher from school on a regular basis, always making a point of planning his busy schedule around his favourite kid in the world. And of course, he had begun to learn more about Eddie and Christopher’s secret daily routine.

While Buck had officially become a member of the newly-minted Buckley-Diaz household, Eddie had made a point of telling his partner that there was no pressure on him to follow his and Christopher’s rigorous daily schedule. Knowing full well that Buck was definitely not a morning person but would still do anything he could to lend a helping hand, Eddie had extended him an open invitation, a window into their new life together without trying to put any pressure on the younger man. After much debate, they had agreed that they would both wake up with Chris on weekdays and would alternate on weekends or their days off.

⁂

When Eddie had woken up this morning, he had sleepily silenced the alarm to his right and rolled over to give Buck a quick peck on the cheek before rolling back out of bed, a little groggier than usual. Given that it was Saturday and he and Buck had the day off, the alarm next to him had gone off at a quarter to eight, an extra two hours later than on weekdays. As he slowly rolled out of bed to wake up Christopher and begin their morning routine, Eddie was met with a rare amount of resistance from his son, who had gone to sleep the previous night with an upset stomach.

On any other day, Eddie would try to gently coax Chris out of bed or allow him to sleep for a little while longer, but he could hear the desperate whine in his son’s voice—a sound that only his partner seemed to know how to fix time and again. It’s a bond that admittedly made Eddie a little jealous at first, but it is one that he has grown to appreciate more than ever between the two most important people in his life.

Slightly defeated, Eddie returns to his room where Buck is still sound asleep on his side, facing Eddie’s side of the bed. While he hates having to disturb the peaceful look on his partner’s face when he is asleep, Eddie gently shakes Buck’s left arm before whispering in the younger man’s ear, “Buck, I can’t get him up today. He wants you.”

As he sleepily comes to his senses, Buck lets out a tired smile when he sees Eddie crouched before him. Slowly, he rolls out of bed and says with a scratchy voice, “Sure, I got it.”

“I’ll go make us some coffee. It looks like it’ll be the two of us getting ready with our little superman again today.”

Buck lets out another tired and bashful smile at the lack of hesitation in Eddie’s voice in that last statement. He truly loves Christopher like his own child. “Sounds goood. I’ll meet you in the kitchen when I get him uuuuuup,” he says, yawning while attempting to stretch.

Within a matter of minutes, Eddie is standing in his kitchen, two coffee mugs in hand, waiting for his new Cuisinart coffee machine to start working. When Buck moved, he had given a lot of small kitchen appliances to Maddie and Chimney, but one of the few things that he had kept was this trusty 12-cup coffee maker that Eddie had been meaning to buy for months but eventually forgot about since he usually only drank coffee at the station. Luckily, the coffee brews quickly enough that Eddie just barely avoids falling asleep against the white cabinets in his kitchen.

With a filled coffee mug in both hands, Eddie walks back down the hallway towards Christopher’s room, wondering mindlessly about the suspicious lack of noise coming from the bathroom at the end of the hall, or any other room for that matter. When he peers into his son’s room, he is met with a messy bedspread and Christopher’s glasses still on his night table. When he looks in the bathroom, everything is exactly the same as he had left it the night before.

“Buck? Chris? Where are you? I’m going to get breakfast ready soon…” Eddie says, voice just barely above a whisper and eyes still heavy with fatigue.

 _Where are they?_ he wonders as he begins to yawn again.

But as he passes his own room around the corner, where the door is slightly cracked open, Eddie’s heart nearly skips a beat, prompting him to stop dead in his tracks.

Under the blue and black comforter on his bed, Eddie opens the door to find Christopher and Buck asleep in each other’s arms. With Chris resting his head on Buck’s chest and tightly wrapping his small arm around the man’s muscular frame, Buck has lightly wrapped a protective arm around the young boy to rest his hand in his soft curly hair. As he endearingly watches the small and satisfied smiles on the faces of his two favourite troublemakers, Eddie is trying to make sense of exactly how they managed to get into this situation. At some point in the last five minutes, while Eddie was attempting not to fall asleep against the kitchen cabinets, Buck had managed to get Chris out of bed, only to cross the hall and fall back asleep with the young boy in a different room.

While Eddie knows the importance of maintaining Christopher’s routines as much as possible, he can’t help but smile and make an exception on a morning where they could all frankly use a few more hours of sleep. As he steps back breathlessly to take in the unexpected view, Eddie can’t help but feel a surge of happiness and lightheartedness that is enough to bring him close to tears. This is his new life, his new normal. This is the life that he has always wanted: one where he and his partner can spend a carefree day off with their son with nothing else to worry about. A day where they can fall asleep in each other’s arms, eat breakfast together and make plans to stay in or go out as a _family_ because that is exactly what they are. They are each other’s home, exactly where they all should be.

When he had moved to Los Angeles, Eddie truly wondered if he would ever be able to feel the kind of happiness that he had always longed for. He had loved Shannon, and part of him probably always would, but he never knew he could love someone more than the two people sleeping curled before him at this very moment. It’s an elusive, uncontrollable feeling that is enough to make Eddie’s heart flutter, a vulnerable side of his rough façade that he has only recently begun to accept.

As quickly but as quietly as he can, Eddie sets down the two futile coffee mugs on his night table and quietly slips under the comforter and into the remaining open space on his side of the bed. Slowly, he puts another protective arm over Christopher to mimic Buck’s motion and ends up resting his hand against Buck’s side, essentially giving them both a hug. Buck, as if sensing his partner’s presence on the other side of the bed without opening his eyes, lets out a peaceful sigh before calmly shifting his body to keep Christopher resting comfortably between them.

With the incredible demands of all of their lives, Eddie knows full well that this moment of serenity, this fleeting moment of pure bliss with his two favourite boys, will be over before he knows it. But as he settles back into his pillow, wrapped in the warm embrace of his family, Eddie is immediately struck by how naturally domestic this feels. Somewhere, between the stressful demands of his personal life and the unpredictability of his life at the 118, Eddie had seemingly found love when he least expected it—in the arms of his son and partner, whom he would vow to protect for as long as he possibly could.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated. Here is the piece of artwork (by the same artist) that inspired my description of Buck, Eddie and Christopher curled up in bed together: https://gray-licious.tumblr.com/post/188869753689/you-two-have-an-adorable-son.


End file.
